Synthetic boundary conditions for image deblurring

In this paper we introduce a new boundary condition that can be used when reconstructing an image from observed blurred and noisy data. Our approach uses information from the observed image to enforce boundary conditions that continue image features such as edges and texture across the boundary. Because of its similarity to methods used in texture synthesis, we call our approach synthetic boundary conditions. We provide an efficient algorithm for implementing the new boundary condition, and provide a linear algebraic framework for the approach that puts it in the context of more classical and well known image boundary conditions, including zero, periodic, reflective, and anti-reflective. Extensive numerical experiments show that our new synthetic boundary conditions provide a more accurate approximation of the true image scene outside the image boundary, and thus allow for better reconstructions of the unknown, true image scene. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.